Elevating Land Tenure Security Through Multilateral Action and New Partnerships

Why elevating tenure security within global policy and financing frameworks is critical to unlocking peace, resilience, and inclusive growth.

Editorial — When conflict erupts or crises unfold, land is often one of the first things people lose — and one of the last they recover. Land is not merely a physical asset. It is a source of livelihoods, shelter, identity, power, and belonging.

The Labondo local integration project illustrates how secure land tenure can anchor durable solutions, foster social cohesion, and drive local development. (Photo: UNHCR)

In fragile and conflict-affected contexts, unresolved land issues frequently lie beneath patterns of displacement, violence, and exclusion. Yet, despite its centrality, land tenure security remains strikingly absent from global peace-building and development strategies.

As donor governments, development banks, humanitarian agencies, and private sector actors gather at high-level forums to chart the future of fragile states, there is an urgent need to elevate land tenure from a peripheral technical issue to a strategic policy priority. Tenure security must be reframed not simply as property management, but as a multiplier for peace, resilience, and sustainable development, and embedded in the way the multilateral system collaborates with new and non-traditional partners.

The Missing Link in Peace-building and Development

Global policy frameworks — from the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States to successive OECD States of Fragility reports — consistently emphasise inclusive governance, institutional resilience, and rule of law. Yet land tenure, which underpins all three, remains neglected. Peacebuilding efforts often prioritise power-sharing, security sector reform, and elections, while leaving unresolved the ground-level disputes over who owns, controls, and accesses land.

The consequences are well documented. In South Sudan, unaddressed land claims have fuelled renewed violence and obstructed the return of displaced populations. In Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, weak land governance has undermined state legitimacy. In Haiti, post-earthquake reconstruction was paralysed for years by unclear land ownership. In northern Uganda, returnee populations faced recurring disputes over customary land — disputes that could have been pre-empted through basic mapping and tenure documentation.

The message is clear: without secure land rights, peace processes remain fragile, displacement becomes protracted, and development investments are at risk. Conversely, when tenure is strengthened — especially in ways that are inclusive and locally grounded — communities are better positioned to recover, rebuild trust, and sustain development gains.

A Strategic Opportunity for Multilateral Action

For the multilateral system, the task ahead is not only to acknowledge tenure security as a core issue, but to position it at the heart of mainstream policy and financing frameworks. Multilateral development banks have a unique opportunity to treat land tenure systems as essential public infrastructure, on par with roads, energy grids, and digital networks. Investments in cadastral reform, land information systems, and legal recognition of customary tenure can unlock multiple dividends: enhanced agricultural productivity, reduced conflict, increased gender equity, and improved climate resilience.

The private sector also has a strategic role to play. In sectors such as agriculture, mining, housing, and infrastructure, secure tenure provides the foundation for predictable business environments, reduces disputes, and ensures compliance with evolving global due diligence standards such as the OECD Guidelines and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

Big Tech and geospatial companies are increasingly indispensable partners in this effort. Their data, mapping capabilities, and digital infrastructure can accelerate low-cost, scalable land documentation. Satellite imagery, AI-driven mapping, and blockchain solutions are already being piloted to document customary lands and enable transparent registries. Strategic partnerships between these actors and multilateral institutions could bring these innovations to scale in fragile and complex settings.

Climate and humanitarian actors must also be part of this shift. Climate mitigation and adaptation programmes, from afforestation to clean energy, hinge on secure community land rights. Similarly, durable solutions for displaced populations depend on access to safe, legally recognised land for return, integration, or resettlement. Bringing these different communities of practice together around a shared agenda for tenure security would mark a decisive step forward.

Tools and Innovations Exist — The Gap Is Political Will and Integration

The global land community has developed cost-effective and adaptable tools that make tenure security more accessible than ever. Fit-for-purpose land administration approaches emphasise flexibility, participatory engagement, and incremental upgrading. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), an ISO standard, allows interoperability between formal and informal tenure systems. Participatory mapping empowers communities to use GPS and mobile apps to document their claims, while legal empowerment strategies train grassroots paralegals to navigate complex tenure arrangements.

These innovations are proving their worth in practice. In Nigeria’s Adamawa State, the Labondo Local Integration Project — led by UNHCR with local and civil society partners — introduced Certificates of Housing Units in communities with no tradition of exclusive land rights. This incremental approach to tenure security emerged from sustained negotiation among local authorities, state government, and humanitarian actors, and now forms the backbone of durable local integration for displaced families.

In Labondo, returnees and host communities are transforming land into a foundation for shared futures — turning tenure security into lasting peace and development. (Photo: UNHCR)

The technology and operational models exist. The challenge lies in systematically integrating them into the core workstreams of multilateral and financial institutions, aligning them with private sector investment frameworks, and embedding them within national development strategies.

A New Diplomacy: Building Coalitions for Tenure Security

Land governance is often treated as a purely domestic affair, but its impacts are transnational — influencing migration, trade, investment, food security, and climate action. Addressing tenure insecurity requires a new kind of diplomacy that builds durable coalitions between governments, multilaterals, private capital, civil society, and communities.

Local leadership is indispensable. Too often, tenure interventions are externally designed with limited involvement from those most affected. Sustainable impact demands genuine investment in local capacity, flexible funding, and the transfer of decision-making power to grassroots organisations, customary authorities, women’s groups, and displaced communities. When these actors lead, tenure reforms gain legitimacy and resilience.

From Margins to Mainstream: A Call to Action

The coming months bring critical opportunities: the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, the Conference on Land Policy in Africa, and COP30. These platforms offer a chance to mainstream tenure security across climate, development, humanitarian, and peace agendas.

Multilateral institutions should fund tenure systems as core public infrastructure, incorporate tenure indicators into resilience frameworks, and integrate land rights across their climate, fragility, and development portfolios. Private sector actors and Big Tech companies should embed land due diligence into their operations, co-design digital solutions with local communities, and invest in tenure innovations that align commercial interests with social impact.

Philanthropic and climate funds should finance scalable, locally led tenure initiatives as part of broader adaptation and resilience programmes. Governments and civil society must continue to assert land rights, innovate solutions, and hold partners accountable for inclusive, transparent land governance.

Tenure security is not a silver bullet. But it is a powerful enabler. When land rights are secure, people invest. When tenure is equitable, societies heal. When governance is transparent, peace has space to take root.

In this era of cascading crises, the world cannot afford to leave land at the margins of policy. Peace and development begin from the ground up — on land that is secure, shared, and just.